Blown away!

**pajeff02** · 03-30-2010, 04:02 PM

Times are certainly changing in northcentral Pennsylvania. We have gas wells going in left and right and more trucks on the road than ever before. We also have a little "green power" happening. Within the last 2-3 years they have erected a wind farm that spans the eastern part of our county and into the next county on what is called Armenia Mountain.

I think there are something like 53 windmills in operation. Last weekend, we went for a ride in my stepson's new truck to check them out. I you look in the one picture, you can see my stepson and wife at the base of the tower. The truck to the right is a full-size extended cab GMC. Needless to say, I was blown away by the size of these things. The rotors make a real loud "whoosh - whoosh - whoosh" as they rotate.

My stepson works as a lineman for Penelec and according to him the windmills feed the power grid in New Jersey. Pretty impressive stuff:

**Zapper2003** · 03-30-2010, 04:17 PM

Pretty nice closeup of your wife, dude.

**Nhra Firebird** · 03-30-2010, 04:19 PM

Originally Posted by Zapper2003

Pretty nice closeup of your wife, dude.

**Hi-Po** · 03-30-2010, 04:19 PM

Cool pictures Jeff. Do you know who owns them, or the maintenance lease? Siemens, GE, Vestas, Mitsubishi etc? Either way, my brother works for Siemens Wind Turbine in Iowa. Its a huge farm, I think I counted 80 off his back porch one night. He took me inside and up the first level of one of those 300 foot beasts. Really impressive.

My training should start in the next month in Vancouver WA, then I should be with Siemens. The training is only 6 months long, so its doable.

**blk9660** · 03-30-2010, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by Zapper2003

Pretty nice closeup of your wife, dude.

**Nhra Firebird** · 03-30-2010, 04:22 PM

Most of the jobs we bid are leed jobs, but i think the green thing is about half a joke. We just finished a leed silver school and all night long they light the damn school up. From all the rooms inside to all the pole lights in the parking lots.

**Hi-Po** · 03-30-2010, 04:23 PM

Originally Posted by Zapper2003

Pretty nice closeup of your wife, dude.

**pajeff02** · 03-30-2010, 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by Zapper2003

Pretty nice closeup of your wife, dude.

That was intentional.

Originally Posted by Hi-Po

Cool pictures Jeff. Do you know who owns them, or the maintenance lease? Siemens, GE, Vestas, Mitsubishi etc? Either way, my brother works for Siemens Wind Turbine in Iowa. Its a huge farm, I think I counted 80 off his back porch one night. He took me inside and up the first level of one of those 300 foot beasts. Really impressive.

My training should start in the next month in Vancouver WA, then I should be with Siemens. The training is only 6 months long, so its doable.

I believe it is an outfit called AES. Don't know a thing about them.

Originally Posted by blk9660

So would I...

**Zapper2003** · 03-30-2010, 04:26 PM

So the old tRusty ranger is gone from your driveway now, Jeff?

**pajeff02** · 03-30-2010, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by Zapper2003

So the old tRusty ranger is gone from your driveway now, Jeff?

He's actually driving it now. Had a deer smack into the side of his GMC on the way to work about 2 weeks ago and it is at my brother-in-law's getting fixed. The clutch is about gone in the Ranger and he is making no effort to fix it.

**KahanaReef** · 03-30-2010, 04:32 PM

I had no idea they were that large.

**Nhra Firebird** · 03-30-2010, 04:35 PM

Don't get me wrong I'm all about green power, but in the construction end it needs to improve big time. A lot of recycled materials need to be used in leed jobs, but it takes 5 times the energy to make the materials out of recycled aluminum.

**Nhra Firebird** · 03-30-2010, 04:39 PM

They had a much smaller one on craigslist i was thinking about buying for my house, but I don't think we have enough wind here. I would love to do solar power, but its not cost effective yet. If you go solar right now its more to make a statement.

**Zapper2003** · 03-30-2010, 04:42 PM

Ya know, it's a fuckin' tossup and you could argue the point about the 'green' energy all damn day. I'm not here to do that. My point of view is in that yeah, they cost a lot. A whole lot more than what is currently available (the electricity produced by wind power is like 2.5x more money at the meter than coal power), everyone around here seemsto bring this up first and complains about it. The point is not to make cheap electricity, it is to get away from using fossil fuels. Yes, the construction of these does use a lot of fossil fuels, however, take into consideration the (hopeful) longevity of these machines, and quite possibly they may, in due time, recover their costs of construction, operation and maitenence. Chances are its a crapshoot, six of one, half dozen of the other kind of situation. Regardless, the first time I ever saw a windfarm, all I could think about was "War of the Worlds".

**gnomee** · 03-30-2010, 04:47 PM

Pretty cool pics!

**blk9660** · 03-30-2010, 04:48 PM

They put up a couple hundred of these up at/around our family farm in the last couple years, they 'caused ALOT of hate and discontent throughout the "neighborhood". There were protests, people that were for it have a couple on there land, then the neighbors are against them and wouldnt let them on to run all the underground stuff to connect all of them... was quite the big deal up here.

I remember one 'ole hag tried argueing against them, and this is no bs, was because "when she watched the shadows of the blades on the ground, she got dizzy/nautious!!!!!! I fuckin rolled when I heard that shit!!!!!

Another arguement was "what about the Canadian Geese??? Some PETA fuckers were trying to say that the birds didnt know any better and would fly into them........... again, NO bs!!!!

**Nhra Firebird** · 03-30-2010, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by Zapper2003

Ya know, it's a fuckin' tossup and you could argue the point about the 'green' energy all damn day. I'm not here to do that. My point of view is in that yeah, they cost a lot. A whole lot more than what is currently available (the electricity produced by wind power is like 2.5x more money at the meter than coal power), everyone around here seemsto bring this up first and complains about it. The point is not to make cheap electricity, it is to get away from using fossil fuels. Yes, the construction of these does use a lot of fossil fuels, however, take into consideration the (hopeful) longevity of these machines, and quite possibly they may, in due time, recover their costs of construction, operation and maitenence. Chances are its a crapshoot, six of one, half dozen of the other kind of situation. Regardless, the first time I ever saw a windfarm, all I could think about was "War of the Worlds".

I agree that we need to do something with green energy, but we don't need to be building our schools leed platinum.

**Nhra Firebird** · 03-30-2010, 04:53 PM

If i do anything it will be geothermal heating and cooling.

**Nhra Firebird** · 03-30-2010, 05:00 PM

sorry for hijacking the thread Jeff

**pajeff02** · 03-30-2010, 05:05 PM

I believe their construction was in part subsidized. Sounds right that the cost per kilowatt is still cheaper with fossil fuels than wind power. Here's a blurb from the AES site on the wind farm -- I was off, there are 67 wind turbines:

AES Wind Generation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES), announced the start of commercial operation for its 101 MW Armenia Mountain wind farm in Pennsylvania, one of the commonwealth's largest. Located in north central region of Pennsylvania in Tioga and Bradford Counties, the wind farm is comprised of 67 1.5 MW GE SLE wind turbines.

Marty Crotty, President of AES Wind Generation, said, "Armenia Mountain is our first wind project in PJM Interconnection, which we continue to see as an important market in our U.S. strategy. We look forward to developing new projects in the region."

Power generated by the Armenia Mountain wind farm will be sold to Delmarva Power & Light and the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative. Each of the investment-grade off takers has contracted to purchase 50 percent of the output under separate 15-year power purchase agreements. AES Wind Generation developed, owns and operates the Armenia Mountain wind farm. RES Americas Construction served as the construction contractor.

This year AES Wind Generation's global operating capacity increased by 166 MW to 1,447 MW, including Armenia Mountain and wind farms in China and France. In 2009, AES brought a total of 995 MW of thermal and renewable projects on-line in Cameroon, Chile, China, France, Jordan, Northern Ireland and the United States. AES also has projects in construction in Bulgaria, Chile, China, France, Greece, Panama, Scotland and Turkey.

The AES Corporation (NYSE: AES) is a Fortune 500 global power company with generation and distribution businesses. Through our diverse portfolio of thermal and renewable fuel sources, we safely provide affordable and sustainable energy in 29 countries. Our workforce of 25,000 people is committed to operational excellence and meeting the world's changing power needs. Our 2008 revenues were $16 billion and we own and manage $35 billion in total assets. BusinessWeek named AES to its 2009 "BW 50 Best Performers" list.

Source: http://www.greenjobs.com/Public/Indu...inews07164.htm